Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the cyclical nature of human memory and experience, emphasizing how people often forget past hardships during better times and vice versa.
John Steinbeck's quote illustrates the tendency of people to lose sight of their past experiences, particularly how the struggles of difficult times are forgotten in the face of prosperity, and the abundance of good times can lead to neglecting the challenges faced in harder years. This cyclical forgetfulness affects how societies respond to both wealth and hardship, suggesting a lack of acknowledgment of history in shaping current values and behaviors.
Themes
MemoryExperienceCyclesHuman NatureHistory
In practice
Example use cases
During a presentation on economic cycles, you might use this quote to demonstrate how societies often forget past recessions during times of growth.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes →At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
John SteinbeckRead
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
John SteinbeckRead
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
John SteinbeckRead
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
John SteinbeckRead
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
John SteinbeckRead
Similar quotes
The suffering of either sex - of the male who is unable, because of the way in which he was reared, to take the strong initiating or patriarchal role that is still demanded of him, or of the female who has been given too much freedom of movement as a child to stay placidly within the house as an adult - this suffering, this discrepancy, this sense of failure in an enjoined role, is the point of leverage for social change.
Margaret MeadRead
Black women rock the cradle, and whoever rocks the cradle rocks the future.
Marian Wright EdelmanRead
Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstitutred. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.
Arundhati RoyRead
New beginnings – professional, personal, or come what may – are always uncomfortable, but being open to them is the only way to grow. In the end, we are all capable of so much more than we think.
Marissa MayerRead
No, we are not anti-white. But we don't have time for the white man. The white man is on top already, the white man is the boss already ... He has first-class citizenship already. So you are wasting your time talking to the white man. We are working on our own people.
Malcolm XRead
Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.
Emma GoldmanRead